This video is now part of the Stats Series playlist (designed to be watched in order): ua-cam.com/play/PLtzZl14BrKjTJZdubjNEY5jU0fGOiy51x.html Really enjoyed the comments and discussion below so far...
The team's play style is also a significant factor to impact as it determines players' roles. Unfortunately, I think it's one element of the game that's unlikely to be translatable to numbers.
Hey! Love your videos, was hoping to actually talk with you about the data science and basketball intersection (could I get your email?). I just think it's pretty cool and has a lot of applications.
Hey do you think it’s possible to be 10 top and every statistical category and win 7 MVPs 7 finals mvps 5 dpoy so I’ll become the greatest point guard ever is that possible? And be apart of 50 40 90 club?
I figured out why Luka's on/off is negative: Boban. I know it sounds silly but when you look at his advanced stats this year it makes sense: Bobi's a +23 OnCourt this year and a +16.9 on/off.
I would love there to be some sort of "Stops" stat that can be shown for how a defender impacts an offensive possession that forces a missed shot. Lets get some better mainstream ways of judging defense outside of steals and blocks.
That's one of the holy grails of defensive stats. But it's almost impossible even conceptually to do. How do you judge when a team DOESN'T do something because of a defensive action that can sometimes be extremely subtle. Like how do you score a defender for leaning on his assigned player enough that the opposing team doesn't pass the ball in the defender's direction? You can score it like a coach on a 1-5 scale, but then you're just making subjective judgements "objective" by assigning a number that is subjective. Agreed though, if someone could figure that out it would be sick.
@@jonjuko8859 DFG% is extremely context dependent, and you end up with such tiny sample sizes on matchups that could tell you anything interesting, it's hard to put much stock into.
Also brings up the question of team fit vs raw skill or talent. Kyrie does some things Kemba could never do. But Kemba is such a good team player, hustling to defend and take charges and so forth, he really makes up for what he lacks in talent.
@Ovtcry I agree with you. Regular season wins don't mean shit, the playoffs is all that matters. At the end of the day, nets got better. Now the Celtics will probably do better this year, but that's more because of injuries last year, not the switching of star point guards
Ovtcry losing in the second round is fine with me if the whole team tries and gives full effort. when we lost last year it was bc kyrie had the worst shooting series by a star ever and never passed and played some very selfish ball. that was hard to watch
Wins aren't linear numbers. Taking a 10 wins team to 20 wins is much easier than taking a 60 wins team to 70 wins. Add synergy into considering, measuring a player with only win/loss change is almost impossible. Maybe we need to quantify the value of each win from 1 to 82 to a sheet of numbers. And we need to take out the system(offense/ defense scheme) multiplying effect to get a meaningful stats.
I was waiting for Ben to bring that up too. And to take it further, wins also have varying values year-to-year. In an expansion year, for example, there is less talent in the league so wins are easier (less valuable) for teams with talent. Same thing with the Eastern Conference having less talent than the West for the last 20 years. So just taking that into account, plus the marginal value of wins you brought up, and you already have a 2-D array that explains this relationship. And then you add in the other factors you brought up and this shit gets complicated fast lol
In the end, nothing replaces basketball knowledge and feeling. That's why a good coach can make a big difference. You can compile all the numbers you want, basketball is a group activity (hence the complexity) but you'll never understand humans :)
@@OjoRojo40 True, people need to understand analytics is just a tool to help you. Apply stats with actual BBall context is the right wat of using math.
Uhhhh, taking a 60 win team to 70 wins is almost mathematically impossible just based on how "many" teams won 70 games. First, if a team wins 60 games it is already a good team in the first place, adding a primary star will just skew the balance, because let's say....Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum led the Celtics to 60 wins. Then you add Giannis or Durant on that team, it might or might not win 70 games, because the 82 game season is a marathon. Durant or Giannis will eat up touches and shots from JB and JT., it will be good because it lessens the fatigue, it can also be bad because it will disrupt their rhythm on being the primary 2 guys. Then IF IFI IF IF they win 70 games, how can you attribute that to the new guy? Because he elevated them to new heights. But they are already on top in the first place. If anything, it will just be a knock on those guys because they are three prime stars who teamed up to make things easier for them. Now, taking a crappy 20 win teams to 60 wins is more impressive. One very good example is Larry Bird. 29 wins to 61 wins wihgtout any major changes in the roster. It just means the personnel is not that good from the get go. Tim Duncan's 20 wins to 56 wins is not that impressive. Admiral only played 6 games the season prior and the Spurs just tanked. In Duncan's first year, the Admiral, though still not 100%, played 73 games to help the team win 56 games.
As a statistician I couldn’t express how great my appreciation to your channel is. I hope I could tie up every one of friends who constant bring up sTaTs without understanding the implication and intuition behind each number and force them to watch every video of yours. Heuristic biases are just way too big among basketball fans
I love your videos but is there any way that you can make a video about kyrie’s “negative impact” on the Celtics or his other teams, I would like to see if there is really some validity to it. I’ve noticed that people often try to point out how his teams win without him. For example people try to point out that the Celtics are doing way better but in reality they have 2 wins (Bucks and Mavs) and 3 loses (76ers, Nuggets and Clippers) actual playoff contenders and up to this point most other wins are form teams that are 8th-7th seed teams and garbage like the Knicks (3 times), Cavs, Warriors, Hornets, Suns, and Nets (without Kyrie and LeVert their best scorers). Not that they are not a good team but you can just pull stats out of your ass with little to no context and justify whatever you say especially if there is a big market fan base that hates him and will further the claims that they are not where they could be because of him.
@@morbinmalachi I saw a video which explained how wilts numbers were amazing in his first few years but because of that his teammates suffered because they didn't get the ball enough. The same thing applied to Jordan and I think a similar sort of thing is happening with him. He's playing amazing but without passing it, his team suffers.
I dont think there can ever be a Holy Grail of Stats because the game is too complex and nuanced. Every single action on a basketball court effects every other action, and there is no way to isolate and assign value to all of these different things. Additionally, all movements need to be judged in the context of when they are happening (ie. game situation, defensive or offensive system, shot clock position, foul counts, ect.).
I mean, there’s not a “holy grail” in the broad scope of what it is “supposed to be” so I feel like that’s kinda the point here. You’re chasing something you’ll never gain.
Ideally, if you could track every movement and quantify the value of each screen, pass, shot, rebound, etc. you can find the expected points added similar to football to show how many points above average each player adds and then adjust for opponent difficulty.
Love this Ben, along with Seth Partnow in my opinion the two of you are the best basketball thinkers/ analysts working in the public sphere. Always thoroughly enjoy your analysis and learn from it.
Knowing how complex the sport actually is.. versus the simplification and use of biased heuristics (generated by our confident best-guessing brains)... makes you wonder how management/coaching staff can reliably determine not just who to hire but also which combinations of players produce the highest global impact for the team. From a community level youth basketball coach perspective... these lessons help me maintain perspective as to what can be expected.. as well as my grudging acknowledgment that no matter how much I want to find a formula to winning games... reality doesn't care about my feelings & goals.
In the end, nothing replaces basketball knowledge and feeling. That's why a good coach can make a big difference. You can compile all the numbers you want, basketball is a group activity (hence the complexity) but you'll never understand humans :)
I would love to some sort of advanced "gravity" statistic, measured by like help steps per drive or something like that. I'm not exactly sure how that would work but it would be interesting to see how many people require attention away from their primary assignment
As a Canadian who knew next to nothing about basketball and started to tune in when the Raptors made their run, your videos have been essential in helping me understand this game. Thanks so much for these videos
A few questions: how do you measure for the 1980 Celtics' belief that they were a better team with Larry Bird as opposed to the 1979 Celtics without him? I mean the emotions of the players who were on both teams? What about the 1994 Bulls' belief that they weren't as good a team without Michael Jordan as they were in 1993 with Michael Jordan? Also, how do you measure for other emotions players might feel, like a previously capable role player fading into the background as Bird's star rose? How does that affect his play over the course of a season? Or maybe a Bulls players' relief in 1994 that they don't have to put up with an arrogant, driven megalomaniac anymore. Might that allow a player to be a little looser, able to play a little better? Also, which players were in contract years and striving for a big payoff? Which players had signed a contract and were in cruise control? These stats can be interesting, but they treat players like automatons, some with finer tuning than others. That's not who players are. They are wildly emotional, and their emotions can have a serious bearing on how they play and how others on their team play. But because you can't quantify those emotions, you have to set them aside to engage in the argument of "who's better?" Also, how much granularity do you really need? Does it matter how much better Ernie Grunfeld was compared to M.L. Carr (or vice versa)? Does it matter if James Edwards wins the battle of soft, jump-shooting centers over Bill Cartwright? I think you can reduce your list of player evaluation to: 1. Great. 2. Really good. 3. OK. 4. Not very good. 5. Poor. This engages fewer numbers but it does engage what you can see with your own eyes.
@Ulysses432 I'm saying you CAN'T solve for unquantifiable emotions, but those emotions are part of every game and every player. But stat guys dodge around that fact, even though players tell you every day that they're there. Think about Vinny Johnson coming into a game for Detroit back in the 80's and hitting his first two shots. He knows he's hot that night and will keep shooting. His team knows he's hot and feeds him the ball. His coach will suspend the game plan because The Microwave is on that night. The other team gets a little nervous because a streak shooter is feeling it. All of these reactions are based on a feeling and they add up to a player's impact on a game, even though the numbers only reflect four points. There is an emotional aspect to every game that sheer numbers can't represent. They can't get you all the way there.
@Ulysses432 I guess we're not going to agree on a basketball video I watched nine months ago and then forgot about. Enjoy the next leg of your odyssey.
I think grading ability is better for individuals but it doesn’t quantify value. Every team has a different combination of players which may result in different outcomes just like chemical combinations, meaning certain players playing together can reach a different ceiling than & then certain combinations of players might play well against some and weak against others, regardless of how good those players are. So I think value might be one of the hardest things to measure considering there’s so many variables.
That's an interesting way to think about it. And in a sense, value is derived from ability. Like Steph has a high ability to hit 3's, which causes him to have a high value by causing his team to score more and thus win more. And even just finding a guy's true ability as a 3-point shooter can be difficult, let alone his value overall as a player.
hes got his all time top 40 on his website, but yeah i feel like itd be great click bait/ attention grabbing, or even if he just plugged his top 40 in videos
Do you mean we will love the videos of them? Or will be angry with the verdict his metrics give? +++ He has #1 Kareem #2 MJ #3 LBJ #4 Bill Russell #5 Shaq #6 Hakeem #7 Tim Duncan #8 Kevin Garnet #9 Wilt #10 Earvin Johnson backpicks.com/2018/04/12/backpicks-goat-1-kareem-abdul-jabbar/
As a hockey fan, I'm amazed by how much effort there is in basketball to quantify player value. I think there are way too many variables, and inconsistency in the availability of the data surrounding those variables to ever reach the "holy grail" you are looking for. So much of a player's impact is contextual. It's probably more realistic to evaluate a player's impact at the end of his career than at a particular instance in time.
As always, thank you so much for such a high quality content. Would you do a video on other impact measuring metrics like PER, PIE,...??? What those really measure and how to best utilize them? Especually, PER is referenced a lot but I know there are lots of people who do not believe in PER at all.
Great breakdown of this :D Something to note is this: fit and synergy. Let say you have someone who really hums on a certain team. • You could pick Klay Thompson. He might go down as the best off ball moving 3 point shooter (I just made that up) ever. Above Reggie Miller and Ray Allen. Move him from Golden State, who encourages this style of play, to some static team. His rating would go down - IF how GS uses him is his best way of playing. Even though he is the same dude, and still a great player. • Likewise with James Harden, one of the best ISO players currently. Put him on the good GSW team, and he would not have as dominating effect. • Whilst Draymond was gold on those GSW teams, would his D and O be as good on a team without KD, Iguodala and Klay (team D) or KD, Klay and Curry (team O)? It is the synergy and being able to use a skillset, that is also hard to measure. Great questions and answers from you Ben!
I love your videos but I hope new basketball fans take what you're saying with a grain of salt, because you can't fully equate basketball to any scientific median. Otherwise this is the best and most thought out content on youtube, you deserve way more subscribers bro
@@Van_ax as in people who don't really understand what makes a player great or dominant. One shouldn't be weighted solely on numbers and stats. True dominance is seen with the eye not science. However this channel does great at breaking down what we as fans are watching and helping us more understand the game in a new lens
@@Van_ax or as in saying someone is better than the other based off PER100 etc. There are too many variables in the game of basketball like wayyy too many it's infinite
Love this series, and everything you put out. Small note, given how often you reference Part 1, 2, etc. of this series, could you put those numbers in the titles of the videos?
11:30... And this is where you can get into the wonderful world of microstats (I'm coming from the world of hockey, but it seems like people could certainly track boxouts, boxouts from certain locations, probably some other stuff in rebounding alone) also I will say, QoC, in hockey at least has a very small impact on individual players, you usually end up going against the star players of the other team around the same % of your toi compared everyone else on your team, coaches can't control who the other team has out, I would assume it's somewhat similar in basketball
This plus minus statistics doesn’t seem to me very effective just because it really depends on who plays with whom. In most cases, starters play against opponent’s starters and bench players play against other bench players. For example, a plus minus of a bench player can be much higher than a starter, just because he is playing against a weaker team all the time. In order to solve this, we should also look at situations like a starter plays as a bench, and a bench plays as a starter. But of course, coaches don’t do this most of the time.
You mentioned how changing a players PPG by just 2 can change their ranking a TON for mid level players are just a little with Top Scorers. I checked with Giannis '20-'21 Season. 28.1 PPG (Ranked 5) reduced by 2 PPG only drops him to 13th. So that would only drop him 8 spots. Pretty nutz.
I really like your advanced thinking on this stuff. Though I do realise you really have to understand the game before you can interpret the numbers. I love how you distuingish for context. Next stop, psychology and likebility in the mix? I saw in one of your video's an example of Anthony Davis not passing to Caruso, and I thought that he is perhaps not trusted as much as other players, and Davis might not have missed the pass, but simply not trusted Caruso enough to pass the rock.
Very nice video on plus minus. Would be great to see another video focusing on details of the more advanced versions. Also, are any professional teams still using any form of RAPM, or has it been replaced by other metrics by now?
If I have time: may convert the graph “APM Ballparks”, at 9:35 in the video, to a log-log scale. This may reduce the sensitivity of the graph and, further, allow a multi-dimensional representation with other stats to see if they’re scale invariant to APM.
So many calculations. Hopefully one day we get unified calculation that looks into all factors including when players are sick, depressed, and insomniac.
There should be more measurement of intangibles: 1. Open Man/Defensive Lapse leading to opponent bucket 2. Contested Shots against opposing players resulting in a miss 3. Help defense movement resulting in turnovers
The second is publicly available, I'd reccomend checking out 538s raptor which includes this and many other things fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/
Can we create a 2k rating system, a FIFA like rating system for Current NBA players that updates weekly for the NBA pros to accurately gauges how well they are playing further cementing MVP future races between the top 5 NBA stars going forward. hmm hmm.
Great video! It seems like the adjusted plus-minus indicator also does not really account for whether the used point differentials were created in for example "garbage time" minutes versus say "crunch time" minutes. Is that correct?
don't think a player's value will ever be captured by a single stat. you might get a good idea of how someone played in a single game through a stat sheet, but film needs to be utilized too. if you never watched a game and just saw stats from warriors games, you'd never know how easy steph curry made the game for KD.
No there's plenty of stats that show how easy Steph made life for KD, however I'm not saying you shouldn't watch it, and neither is Ben infact you'll notice that he's very film heavy and all the true advanced statisticians jobs start with film, no experienced stats person just looks at a number and trusts it blindly
backpicks.com/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/ here's a whole series written by him about not only the top 10 but top 40. U are gonna be shocked by his rankings but he backs it up when u read each player's profile in detail
Backpicks top 40 he gives detailed reports on players and doesn't put into account his opinion much its actually way more interesting than if you just do a quick look at the list
maybe goodness of a player has more than one degree of freedom. For instance, some player (like curry) might make a good team super good but others (like kobe) couldn't. However, some player (like kobe) can hard carry a mediocre team to pretty good team while others (like curry) couldn't. These are just two different kinds of "goodness". I mean it's still a good goal to try to find a one dimensional stat that best "approximate" that potential multi-dimensional "goodness" (maybe by weighting which type of goodness is more important, in some near objective way).
Hey Ben, it seems clear that from a statical standpoint the best offensive players influence the game more than the best defenders (does this include playoffs?) However it seems alot more common that there's high impact offensive players, does that make those great defenders more valuable from a corp standpoint if thinking as a gm? (not necessarily impactful) since they are harder to replace?
Shouldn't the whole net value be changed from how many your team scored to how many more your team scored than the opponent? Or is it already like that? If it is already like that, doesn't it already take into account everything defensively?
Have always been interested on how the weakness of the eastern conference contributed to LeBron high stats vs the toughness of the western conference contributing to the stats of someone like Kobe.
Do an episode about the Hollinger gamescore statistic....jimmy highroller did a bit recently about it and Jordan and hardens high all time rankings for the star and speculating how wilt would have all the top spots for the star had blocks and other stats been tracked back then....but it is an all encompassing stat similar to PER or box plus minus. Please check it out and do what you can. I'm eager to learn more and get your take on the metric as I had never heard of it before that video but it's apparently been around for awhile
Game score if memory serves is based on PER, while game score is decent for seeing how good a player played relative to themselves, PER is a very poor stat for guaging player impact, most of the advanced stat community are calling for the retirement of PER
I think the noise about “how good is the player replacing you?” Or “how good are your teammates?” is ridiculous. It sounds like excuse making, especially when the focus is supposed to be the impact of one particular player, not all the rest of the players on the team. It gets even more ridiculous when you have to do the same calculation for every replacement player ad infinitum. The most intuitive approach is to look at the addition or the absence of the player in question. Especially when the only difference is THAT player in THAT season. It muddies the waters to factor in (for example) the age or health of every other player on the team since those factors would stay the same WITH the player in question versus WITHOUT him. It just all smacks of apologism imo. Excuse making. Trying to justify someone’s (cough* MJ *cough) surprisingly low impact by including or excluding factors that perhaps shouldn’t be. Sometimes the simplest approach makes the most sense. Said another way: the most convoluted explanation isn’t necessarily the right one.
Are you dumb?😂 Bulls with MJ= 3 straight titles and Bulls without MJ= second round exit despite adding many good role players in the off season. And it's funny how in 1995 that same Bulls team was struggling to make the playoffs until Jordan came back for the last 17 games so they couldn't even keep it up for two whole seasons😬
All I know when Jordan left, the Bulls became a semi deep run playoff team to when Jordan was on it, they were a dynasty. Biggest difference right there
This video is now part of the Stats Series playlist (designed to be watched in order): ua-cam.com/play/PLtzZl14BrKjTJZdubjNEY5jU0fGOiy51x.html
Really enjoyed the comments and discussion below so far...
The team's play style is also a significant factor to impact as it determines players' roles. Unfortunately, I think it's one element of the game that's unlikely to be translatable to numbers.
Hey! Love your videos, was hoping to actually talk with you about the data science and basketball intersection (could I get your email?). I just think it's pretty cool and has a lot of applications.
MJ WORTH 25 GAMES? XD more like 6 nba championships
Hey do you think it’s possible to be 10 top and every statistical category and win 7 MVPs 7 finals mvps 5 dpoy so I’ll become the greatest point guard ever is that possible? And be apart of 50 40 90 club?
I figured out why Luka's on/off is negative: Boban. I know it sounds silly but when you look at his advanced stats this year it makes sense: Bobi's a +23 OnCourt this year and a +16.9 on/off.
Even when I'm confused, which happens often, I'm still entertained 😂
😂😂😂
I would love there to be some sort of "Stops" stat that can be shown for how a defender impacts an offensive possession that forces a missed shot. Lets get some better mainstream ways of judging defense outside of steals and blocks.
Defense is a team thing tho. You need all five to be together to get a lot of stops
That's one of the holy grails of defensive stats. But it's almost impossible even conceptually to do. How do you judge when a team DOESN'T do something because of a defensive action that can sometimes be extremely subtle. Like how do you score a defender for leaning on his assigned player enough that the opposing team doesn't pass the ball in the defender's direction? You can score it like a coach on a 1-5 scale, but then you're just making subjective judgements "objective" by assigning a number that is subjective. Agreed though, if someone could figure that out it would be sick.
DFG% is decent
@@jonjuko8859 DFG% is extremely context dependent, and you end up with such tiny sample sizes on matchups that could tell you anything interesting, it's hard to put much stock into.
Burn Er those are good points!
Having the gif of Bird falling into the scorers table while asking how much he impacted the scoreboard was a nice subtle touch
Center is my favourite 92-93 and 93-94 Bulls player
Underrated comment.
Davis Po
Teamplayer is mine
Well "21 feet of shit" takes up too much space
Lucky Langley?
Bill Cartwright? -5.0 BPM for a Starting C that won the NBA Title. Is that a record for a Starting Champ?
The “how good is the guy your replacing?” Question is interesting with a situation like the Celtics with kyrie and kemba
Alex Yuncker and how nets win more wit DLo than Kyrie
Also brings up the question of team fit vs raw skill or talent. Kyrie does some things Kemba could never do. But Kemba is such a good team player, hustling to defend and take charges and so forth, he really makes up for what he lacks in talent.
@@burner1303 and also, Walker might get more out of his team mates.
So whilst Irving might win 1v1, Walker makes the Celtics work better.
@Ovtcry I agree with you. Regular season wins don't mean shit, the playoffs is all that matters. At the end of the day, nets got better. Now the Celtics will probably do better this year, but that's more because of injuries last year, not the switching of star point guards
Ovtcry losing in the second round is fine with me if the whole team tries and gives full effort. when we lost last year it was bc kyrie had the worst shooting series by a star ever and never passed and played some very selfish ball. that was hard to watch
Wins aren't linear numbers. Taking a 10 wins team to 20 wins is much easier than taking a 60 wins team to 70 wins. Add synergy into considering, measuring a player with only win/loss change is almost impossible. Maybe we need to quantify the value of each win from 1 to 82 to a sheet of numbers. And we need to take out the system(offense/ defense scheme) multiplying effect to get a meaningful stats.
I was waiting for Ben to bring that up too. And to take it further, wins also have varying values year-to-year. In an expansion year, for example, there is less talent in the league so wins are easier (less valuable) for teams with talent. Same thing with the Eastern Conference having less talent than the West for the last 20 years. So just taking that into account, plus the marginal value of wins you brought up, and you already have a 2-D array that explains this relationship. And then you add in the other factors you brought up and this shit gets complicated fast lol
In the end, nothing replaces basketball knowledge and feeling. That's why a good coach can make a big difference. You can compile all the numbers you want, basketball is a group activity (hence the complexity) but you'll never understand humans :)
@@OjoRojo40 True, people need to understand analytics is just a tool to help you. Apply stats with actual BBall context is the right wat of using math.
Uhhhh, taking a 60 win team to 70 wins is almost mathematically impossible just based on how "many" teams won 70 games.
First, if a team wins 60 games it is already a good team in the first place, adding a primary star will just skew the balance, because let's say....Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum led the Celtics to 60 wins. Then you add Giannis or Durant on that team, it might or might not win 70 games, because the 82 game season is a marathon. Durant or Giannis will eat up touches and shots from JB and JT., it will be good because it lessens the fatigue, it can also be bad because it will disrupt their rhythm on being the primary 2 guys.
Then IF IFI IF IF they win 70 games, how can you attribute that to the new guy? Because he elevated them to new heights. But they are already on top in the first place. If anything, it will just be a knock on those guys because they are three prime stars who teamed up to make things easier for them.
Now, taking a crappy 20 win teams to 60 wins is more impressive. One very good example is Larry Bird. 29 wins to 61 wins wihgtout any major changes in the roster. It just means the personnel is not that good from the get go. Tim Duncan's 20 wins to 56 wins is not that impressive. Admiral only played 6 games the season prior and the Spurs just tanked. In Duncan's first year, the Admiral, though still not 100%, played 73 games to help the team win 56 games.
As a statistician I couldn’t express how great my appreciation to your channel is. I hope I could tie up every one of friends who constant bring up sTaTs without understanding the implication and intuition behind each number and force them to watch every video of yours.
Heuristic biases are just way too big among basketball fans
This content....right into my veins, please! Aaah, feels so good.
Get a room, Junior!
the shade on Russ 11:20 🤣
lmao he deliberately chose the 1 to grab the rebound
That’s not shade it what happened
@@kennytheJETT yep Adam's defensive rebounding percentage is pretty much double this year compared to last year just to confirm.
One day you're going to put out a video proving that Kentavious Caldwell Pope is the actual GOAT and we all gonna roll with it.
You haven't seen my 47 minutes on why KCP is the GOAT yet?
When u are a data scientist and a hoop junky at the same time
Beny Budi and I love it
I love your videos but is there any way that you can make a video about kyrie’s “negative impact” on the Celtics or his other teams, I would like to see if there is really some validity to it.
I’ve noticed that people often try to point out how his teams win without him. For example people try to point out that the Celtics are doing way better but in reality they have 2 wins (Bucks and Mavs) and 3 loses (76ers, Nuggets and Clippers) actual playoff contenders and up to this point most other wins are form teams that are 8th-7th seed teams and garbage like the Knicks (3 times), Cavs, Warriors, Hornets, Suns, and Nets (without Kyrie and LeVert their best scorers). Not that they are not a good team but you can just pull stats out of your ass with little to no context and justify whatever you say especially if there is a big market fan base that hates him and will further the claims that they are not where they could be because of him.
I'd love to see this
He was great on Cleveland because they relied on him and LeBron so much but like LeBron he is stifled when he has to play for a real coach
Its hard to measure his leadership and the impact because he still is a talented player
Malachi That’s why I think Thinking Basketball can because he did a similar analysis with Westbrook
@@morbinmalachi I saw a video which explained how wilts numbers were amazing in his first few years but because of that his teammates suffered because they didn't get the ball enough. The same thing applied to Jordan and I think a similar sort of thing is happening with him. He's playing amazing but without passing it, his team suffers.
This is crazy quality content. Keep up the work, you're the best!
I will watch this tomorrow, enough numbers for today.
Lol
no future at all shits basic
There will be no "Holly Grail of stats" until the impact of the defense can be properly measured.
I dont think there can ever be a Holy Grail of Stats because the game is too complex and nuanced. Every single action on a basketball court effects every other action, and there is no way to isolate and assign value to all of these different things. Additionally, all movements need to be judged in the context of when they are happening (ie. game situation, defensive or offensive system, shot clock position, foul counts, ect.).
I mean, there’s not a “holy grail” in the broad scope of what it is “supposed to be” so I feel like that’s kinda the point here. You’re chasing something you’ll never gain.
There's no Holy Grail of stats unless you can prove that your stats helped you to win your game.
Ideally, if you could track every movement and quantify the value of each screen, pass, shot, rebound, etc. you can find the expected points added similar to football to show how many points above average each player adds and then adjust for opponent difficulty.
It is not going to happen becuase basketball is not all about stats. Humans are not computers. They/We have the ability to go over the limit.
Love this Ben, along with Seth Partnow in my opinion the two of you are the best basketball thinkers/ analysts working in the public sphere. Always thoroughly enjoy your analysis and learn from it.
Honestly Stats+eye test+context is how to evaluate a player
Knowing how complex the sport actually is.. versus the simplification and use of biased heuristics (generated by our confident best-guessing brains)... makes you wonder how management/coaching staff can reliably determine not just who to hire but also which combinations of players produce the highest global impact for the team.
From a community level youth basketball coach perspective... these lessons help me maintain perspective as to what can be expected.. as well as my grudging acknowledgment that no matter how much I want to find a formula to winning games... reality doesn't care about my feelings & goals.
insanely good video. Thank you for the effort and quality of your work. I'am glad to be your patreon.
In the end, nothing replaces basketball knowledge and feeling. That's why a good coach can make a big difference. You can compile all the numbers you want, basketball is a group activity (hence the complexity) but you'll never understand humans :)
I would love to some sort of advanced "gravity" statistic, measured by like help steps per drive or something like that. I'm not exactly sure how that would work but it would be interesting to see how many people require attention away from their primary assignment
There is one,on bball index (you might need to pay for it)
As a Canadian who knew next to nothing about basketball and started to tune in when the Raptors made their run, your videos have been essential in helping me understand this game. Thanks so much for these videos
Watching it for the 10th time still the best video on this website
A few questions: how do you measure for the 1980 Celtics' belief that they were a better team with Larry Bird as opposed to the 1979 Celtics without him? I mean the emotions of the players who were on both teams? What about the 1994 Bulls' belief that they weren't as good a team without Michael Jordan as they were in 1993 with Michael Jordan?
Also, how do you measure for other emotions players might feel, like a previously capable role player fading into the background as Bird's star rose? How does that affect his play over the course of a season? Or maybe a Bulls players' relief in 1994 that they don't have to put up with an arrogant, driven megalomaniac anymore. Might that allow a player to be a little looser, able to play a little better? Also, which players were in contract years and striving for a big payoff? Which players had signed a contract and were in cruise control?
These stats can be interesting, but they treat players like automatons, some with finer tuning than others. That's not who players are. They are wildly emotional, and their emotions can have a serious bearing on how they play and how others on their team play. But because you can't quantify those emotions, you have to set them aside to engage in the argument of "who's better?"
Also, how much granularity do you really need? Does it matter how much better Ernie Grunfeld was compared to M.L. Carr (or vice versa)? Does it matter if James Edwards wins the battle of soft, jump-shooting centers over Bill Cartwright? I think you can reduce your list of player evaluation to: 1. Great. 2. Really good. 3. OK. 4. Not very good. 5. Poor. This engages fewer numbers but it does engage what you can see with your own eyes.
@Ulysses432 I'm saying you CAN'T solve for unquantifiable emotions, but those emotions are part of every game and every player. But stat guys dodge around that fact, even though players tell you every day that they're there. Think about Vinny Johnson coming into a game for Detroit back in the 80's and hitting his first two shots. He knows he's hot that night and will keep shooting. His team knows he's hot and feeds him the ball. His coach will suspend the game plan because The Microwave is on that night. The other team gets a little nervous because a streak shooter is feeling it. All of these reactions are based on a feeling and they add up to a player's impact on a game, even though the numbers only reflect four points. There is an emotional aspect to every game that sheer numbers can't represent. They can't get you all the way there.
@Ulysses432 I guess we're not going to agree on a basketball video I watched nine months ago and then forgot about. Enjoy the next leg of your odyssey.
You’re my favourite UA-camr! Amazing content
I thought the holy grail of player impacg judgement was the 2k teammate rating?!
I think grading ability is better for individuals but it doesn’t quantify value.
Every team has a different combination of players which may result in different outcomes just like chemical combinations, meaning certain players playing together can reach a different ceiling than & then certain combinations of players might play well against some and weak against others, regardless of how good those players are.
So I think value might be one of the hardest things to measure considering there’s so many variables.
That's an interesting way to think about it. And in a sense, value is derived from ability. Like Steph has a high ability to hit 3's, which causes him to have a high value by causing his team to score more and thus win more. And even just finding a guy's true ability as a 3-point shooter can be difficult, let alone his value overall as a player.
Burn Er
Correct, for example Lopez was surprisingly a good 3 Point Shooter last season, Blake as well. When previously they didn’t even attempt them.
dang your channel making me feel like a basketball stat wizard
Wooooah I'm digging the new background music!
Truly great concept for a vid. You'll never see this content on Undisputed or first things first
Keep this shit going, most people don’t think deep enough.
I don’t understand what’s going on, but at the same time I understand
This channel would lose their mind when you make a GOAT video
hes got his all time top 40 on his website, but yeah i feel like itd be great click bait/ attention grabbing, or even if he just plugged his top 40 in videos
Do you mean we will love the videos of them?
Or will be angry with the verdict his metrics give?
+++
He has
#1 Kareem
#2 MJ
#3 LBJ
#4 Bill Russell
#5 Shaq
#6 Hakeem
#7 Tim Duncan
#8 Kevin Garnet
#9 Wilt
#10 Earvin Johnson
backpicks.com/2018/04/12/backpicks-goat-1-kareem-abdul-jabbar/
u r the holy grail for sports analysis for the layman!
🙏
@@EndOfTheDemocrats u are nothing but an imbecile who can't finish high school math
As a hockey fan, I'm amazed by how much effort there is in basketball to quantify player value. I think there are way too many variables, and inconsistency in the availability of the data surrounding those variables to ever reach the "holy grail" you are looking for. So much of a player's impact is contextual. It's probably more realistic to evaluate a player's impact at the end of his career than at a particular instance in time.
Love this nuanced explanation. Thanks!
As always, thank you so much for such a high quality content. Would you do a video on other impact measuring metrics like PER, PIE,...??? What those really measure and how to best utilize them? Especually, PER is referenced a lot but I know there are lots of people who do not believe in PER at all.
PER is a horrible stat
Great breakdown of this :D
Something to note is this: fit and synergy.
Let say you have someone who really hums on a certain team.
• You could pick Klay Thompson.
He might go down as the best off ball moving 3 point shooter (I just made that up) ever. Above Reggie Miller and Ray Allen.
Move him from Golden State, who encourages this style of play, to some static team. His rating would go down - IF how GS uses him is his best way of playing.
Even though he is the same dude, and still a great player.
• Likewise with James Harden, one of the best ISO players currently.
Put him on the good GSW team, and he would not have as dominating effect.
• Whilst Draymond was gold on those GSW teams, would his D and O be as good on a team without KD, Iguodala and Klay (team D) or KD, Klay and Curry (team O)?
It is the synergy and being able to use a skillset, that is also hard to measure.
Great questions and answers from you Ben!
I love your videos but I hope new basketball fans take what you're saying with a grain of salt, because you can't fully equate basketball to any scientific median. Otherwise this is the best and most thought out content on youtube, you deserve way more subscribers bro
Can you elaborate
@@Van_ax as in people who don't really understand what makes a player great or dominant. One shouldn't be weighted solely on numbers and stats. True dominance is seen with the eye not science. However this channel does great at breaking down what we as fans are watching and helping us more understand the game in a new lens
@@Van_ax or as in saying someone is better than the other based off PER100 etc. There are too many variables in the game of basketball like wayyy too many it's infinite
Love this series, and everything you put out. Small note, given how often you reference Part 1, 2, etc. of this series, could you put those numbers in the titles of the videos?
Will do -- they're in a playlist now too (pinned comment).
Please keep using Crumpled Jumper’s art for videos it looks sooooo good
Could you upload more videos per month please? You are truly one of the best basketball analyst out. I’m dead ass too
Takeaways from this video:
Read More
The only time I’ve seen this used cleverly - well done Sir.
I respect and hate this, cognitive dissonance activated.
Andrew W. Crawford ty, ty.
Theo 😂
Nobody else like this comment
Kyrie roasted!!!! hahaha that was beautiful. "The ball is a flat disk!"
5:42 “really, never do this” (citing plus minus for individual games)
SKIUUUUPPPPPP
You're videos are so insightful and I love it
11:30... And this is where you can get into the wonderful world of microstats (I'm coming from the world of hockey, but it seems like people could certainly track boxouts, boxouts from certain locations, probably some other stuff in rebounding alone) also I will say, QoC, in hockey at least has a very small impact on individual players, you usually end up going against the star players of the other team around the same % of your toi compared everyone else on your team, coaches can't control who the other team has out, I would assume it's somewhat similar in basketball
Estimated wins added is a great stat
When will part 6 be out?
This plus minus statistics doesn’t seem to me very effective just because it really depends on who plays with whom. In most cases, starters play against opponent’s starters and bench players play against other bench players. For example, a plus minus of a bench player can be much higher than a starter, just because he is playing against a weaker team all the time. In order to solve this, we should also look at situations like a starter plays as a bench, and a bench plays as a starter. But of course, coaches don’t do this most of the time.
Hey, where are you getting those player's cartoons/portraits you show in the videos? They are so cute...
luv this channel really
I love the jab at westbrick s stat padding
This sort of depth is reaching baseball levels of analytics
Akaza with an R squared of a measily 0.159, we have a longggggggg way to go
You mentioned how changing a players PPG by just 2 can change their ranking a TON for mid level players are just a little with Top Scorers. I checked with Giannis '20-'21 Season. 28.1 PPG (Ranked 5) reduced by 2 PPG only drops him to 13th. So that would only drop him 8 spots. Pretty nutz.
I really like your advanced thinking on this stuff. Though I do realise you really have to understand the game before you can interpret the numbers. I love how you distuingish for context.
Next stop, psychology and likebility in the mix?
I saw in one of your video's an example of Anthony Davis not passing to Caruso, and I thought that he is perhaps not trusted as much as other players, and Davis might not have missed the pass, but simply not trusted Caruso enough to pass the rock.
I don't know dude it's almost as if you have to watch guys play and not only look at % to figure out what's going on. Great video, keep it up.
And do more math. Important to be aware of biases in both cases.
It works both ways though. There are plenty of players who can hit a flashy move and cause you to overrate their impact if you only watch film.
Love your videos man!!❤️❤️❤️
i’m a big fan of Evolving Hockey’s RAPM in hockey, which is based on the basketball version
Very nice video on plus minus. Would be great to see another video focusing on details of the more advanced versions. Also, are any professional teams still using any form of RAPM, or has it been replaced by other metrics by now?
If I have time: may convert the graph “APM Ballparks”, at 9:35 in the video, to a log-log scale. This may reduce the sensitivity of the graph and, further, allow a multi-dimensional representation with other stats to see if they’re scale invariant to APM.
So many calculations. Hopefully one day we get unified calculation that looks into all factors including when players are sick, depressed, and insomniac.
Please do more!!!
I love ur player animations
the first year bird played was the year the 3 point came in though. that could be a large factor too
There should be more measurement of intangibles:
1. Open Man/Defensive Lapse leading to opponent bucket
2. Contested Shots against opposing players resulting in a miss
3. Help defense movement resulting in turnovers
The second is publicly available, I'd reccomend checking out 538s raptor which includes this and many other things fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-our-raptor-metric-works/
What programs do you use to create your graphics and graphs?
Thx for another video!
"Basketball is my favourite sport
I like the way they dribble up and down the court"
Talking about impact and not talking about nash's impact on the 2004-2005 suns
Why can I never find someone to debate this data with at parties?
Oh...I have an idea...ooh...
Very interesting. But hard to do. It's cool to keep thinking though on all points
Can we create a 2k rating system, a FIFA like rating system for Current NBA players that updates weekly for the NBA pros to accurately gauges how well they are playing further cementing MVP future races between the top 5 NBA stars going forward. hmm hmm.
Can you reupload your analysis on Kawhi Leonard?
This is a delicious mathematical meal that I'll have to enjoy again to fully appreciate!
The only number that can justify their greatness is the number worn on their backs
We need a video on dennis rodman
Great video! It seems like the adjusted plus-minus indicator also does not really account for whether the used point differentials were created in for example "garbage time" minutes versus say "crunch time" minutes. Is that correct?
don't think a player's value will ever be captured by a single stat. you might get a good idea of how someone played in a single game through a stat sheet, but film needs to be utilized too. if you never watched a game and just saw stats from warriors games, you'd never know how easy steph curry made the game for KD.
No there's plenty of stats that show how easy Steph made life for KD, however I'm not saying you shouldn't watch it, and neither is Ben infact you'll notice that he's very film heavy and all the true advanced statisticians jobs start with film, no experienced stats person just looks at a number and trusts it blindly
That’s cool but with all your stats who’s top 10 all time
backpicks.com/2017/12/11/the-backpicks-goat-the-40-best-careers-in-nba-history/ here's a whole series written by him about not only the top 10 but top 40. U are gonna be shocked by his rankings but he backs it up when u read each player's profile in detail
Backpicks top 40 he gives detailed reports on players and doesn't put into account his opinion much its actually way more interesting than if you just do a quick look at the list
Milto 22 oh thanks
@@thorgod0824 u are welcome
Milto 22 worst list of all time. CP3 over DWade and KD!!?? Lebron over MJ and Kareem over both??? Lmaooo
highest level of art and science.
you are better than bob ross and neil tyson combined.
I miss these videos...
You should do a skill nd defense video were the 90s and 80s players really plumbers and I wanna see who guarded mj to
maybe goodness of a player has more than one degree of freedom. For instance, some player (like curry) might make a good team super good but others (like kobe) couldn't. However, some player (like kobe) can hard carry a mediocre team to pretty good team while others (like curry) couldn't. These are just two different kinds of "goodness".
I mean it's still a good goal to try to find a one dimensional stat that best "approximate" that potential multi-dimensional "goodness" (maybe by weighting which type of goodness is more important, in some near objective way).
Hey Ben, it seems clear that from a statical standpoint the best offensive players influence the game more than the best defenders (does this include playoffs?) However it seems alot more common that there's high impact offensive players, does that make those great defenders more valuable from a corp standpoint if thinking as a gm? (not necessarily impactful) since they are harder to replace?
are you gonna do a vid on defensive stats? ive always wanted a good way to quantify individual defense but it seems like its almost impossible
Shouldn't the whole net value be changed from how many your team scored to how many more your team scored than the opponent? Or is it already like that? If it is already like that, doesn't it already take into account everything defensively?
Love yo channel bro
The isolating impact analysis can possibly show that Kobe wasn't carried by others for his chips
Have always been interested on how the weakness of the eastern conference contributed to LeBron high stats vs the toughness of the western conference contributing to the stats of someone like Kobe.
Bron average more points vs the West than kobe did
Can you do breakdown and analysis on michael jordan and/bird all the greats just so we can see what really made them good
Do an episode about the Hollinger gamescore statistic....jimmy highroller did a bit recently about it and Jordan and hardens high all time rankings for the star and speculating how wilt would have all the top spots for the star had blocks and other stats been tracked back then....but it is an all encompassing stat similar to PER or box plus minus. Please check it out and do what you can. I'm eager to learn more and get your take on the metric as I had never heard of it before that video but it's apparently been around for awhile
Game score if memory serves is based on PER, while game score is decent for seeing how good a player played relative to themselves, PER is a very poor stat for guaging player impact, most of the advanced stat community are calling for the retirement of PER
@@EndOfTheDemocrats what? I didn't say anything about harden lol, but you're correct he does very well in all advanced stats
11:20 haha Westbrook sneakin
Can you do this with kawhi siakam and the raptors. Given that raps are dominating without him, Danny green, Lowry or ibaka
Ben I think a video titled "Why PER needs to be retired" would do well
This ruled, thanks!
I think the noise about “how good is the player replacing you?” Or “how good are your teammates?” is ridiculous.
It sounds like excuse making, especially when the focus is supposed to be the impact of one particular player, not all the rest of the players on the team. It gets even more ridiculous when you have to do the same calculation for every replacement player ad infinitum. The most intuitive approach is to look at the addition or the absence of the player in question. Especially when the only difference is THAT player in THAT season. It muddies the waters to factor in (for example) the age or health of every other player on the team since those factors would stay the same WITH the player in question versus WITHOUT him. It just all smacks of apologism imo. Excuse making. Trying to justify someone’s (cough* MJ *cough) surprisingly low impact by including or excluding factors that perhaps shouldn’t be. Sometimes the simplest approach makes the most sense. Said another way: the most convoluted explanation isn’t necessarily the right one.
Are you dumb?😂 Bulls with MJ= 3 straight titles and Bulls without MJ= second round exit despite adding many good role players in the off season. And it's funny how in 1995 that same Bulls team was struggling to make the playoffs until Jordan came back for the last 17 games so they couldn't even keep it up for two whole seasons😬
All I know when Jordan left, the Bulls became a semi deep run playoff team to when Jordan was on it, they were a dynasty. Biggest difference right there
I came here after hearing about Estimated plus minus, I wanna know what it is